Washington, DC – A food fight broke out in the Congressional cafeteria this week as a rightwing Republican and one sort-of-liberal Democrat tussled over the politically correct term for strips of potato deep-fried in vegetable oil. For years this particular item from the tuber group was called a French fry, but recent moves by France in the United Nations Security Council to prevent a U.S.-led invasion of oil-rich Iraq has created a degree of animosity among backers of that war. Members of the so-called “Bush League”, sometimes referred to as “Bush Youth”, demanded that the words, French fries, be stricken from the congressional menu. Instead, these guardians of the Capitol palate decreed that the potato product in question should be called “Freedom fries”. Kitchen staff, knowing which side their bread is buttered on, were quick to make the change placing little sticky labels on all the menus over the offending name and altering any further reference to fries elsewhere on the premises.

Soon there after, when a kind-of liberal Democrat from one of those Eastern states sat down for lunch and ordered French fries and a burger, he was told by a congressional waiter that French fries were now called Freedom fries and that the honorable congressman from the great state of wherever could only order Freedom fries from then on. Given that the congressman had been spending the past few weeks in closed session with a goodly number of the same far-right congressmen (the ones who had censored the menu) haggling over really stupid sophomoric nit-picking wording for a bill on ruining family farms, the Democratic congressman became, well not really angry, but kind of…well…upset. “I thought they had a lot of gaul renaming French fries”, the sort-of-liberal congressman said, “I mean I support their right to rename food products, but gosh, they’ve ALWAYS been French fries.” Not wishing to create any controversy, the little-bit-of-a-liberal congressman simply ordered “fries” and proceeded to eat his lunch.

However, one of the far-right Bush Youth happened to be seated at the next table and overheard the vaguely liberal congressman’s remarks. Jumping to his feet and pushing the somewhat-liberal congressman’s face into his FREEDOM fries, the Bush Leaguer loudly admonished his fellow congressman for “aiding and abetting terrorists” and being a “fellow traveler for those ungodly frogs who are un-American and talk funny, as well”. Not wanting to cause a scene, the barely liberal congressman with the potato product on his face excused himself from the table and went to change his tie.

Capitol police were called to quell the disturbance, but upon arriving realized there was no problem and that it all had been some kind of misunderstanding. Additionally, they put to rest the rumor that someone had broke into the cafeteria the night before and changed all the menus and other references to the fried potato product to read: “Fascist fries”. The senior officer on the scene stated that such a thing could never happen in the U.S. Capitol.